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their style, it is especially by transferring through translation or imitation their beauties into the national idiom, and not by caricaturing them in their own, that classical instruction may be productive of real advantage, that the understanding may be exercised, the taste cultivated, and a command of the native tongue secured.

SECT. IV.-WRITING THE NATIVE AND WRITING A FOREIGN
LANGUAGE CONTRASTED.

Composition in the native tongue, independently of its importance as an ultimate object, presents great intellectual advantages which cannot be obtained from writing in a foreign one, at an early stage of the study. The observations which we made in the beginning of this chapter, to show that writing a foreign language yields to speaking in importance, do not apply to the writing of the native tongue, which, considered as a means of mental improvement, excels speaking. It enables us to make a better choice of words, to mark more forcibly the relations between ideas, to connect them more logically, to diffuse more harmony through discourse, and to enter more deeply into the subject of which we have to treat. To speak is to think, but to write is to meditate. The practice of composition in the native language exercises all the powers of the mind more efficiently than conversation, and it is more easily effected than that of extempore speaking; it is a good preparation for either. Cicero,* Quintilian,† and after them, Lord Brougham, observe, that he who wishes to speak well, must write a great deal. "I should lay it down as a rule admitting of no exception," says the latter, "that a man will speak well in proportion as he has written much, and that, with equal talents he will be the finest extempore speaker, when no time for preparing is allowed, who has prepared himself the most sedulously, when he had an opportunity of delivering a premeditated speech. All the exceptions which I have ever heard cited to this principle, are apparent ones only; proving nothing more than that some few men of rare genius have become great speakers without preparation; in nowise showing that, with preparation, they would not have reached a much higher pitch of excellence."

De Oratore. Lib. 1.

† Instit. Orat. Lib. 1. Inaugural Discourse at the University of Glasgow, 1825.

In composing in the vernacular tongue, the writer, intent upon the thought, sometimes compels the words to follow all its movements; at other times, as he polishes the style, he at will corrects, extends, restrains the ideas which engage him. In endeavouring to make them clear and intelligible to others, he considers the words in all their bearings; and, after due investigation, he succeeds in clearly expressing complete and accurate ideas. Hence the truth of Blair's precept that learning to compose and arrange sentences with accuracy and order, is learning to think with accuracy and order.*

This mutual influence and dependence which thought and language have upon each other take place only when the writer uses the language as the direct and spontaneous expression of his thoughts, and when he is practically conversant with its genius and phraseology. But the learner who writes in a foreign language which is not yet familiar to him, does not think in it, and is even unable to choose the words which would best convey his ideas, because he knows not their true import nor the various shades of meaning of which they are susceptible; his consideration of words does not go beyond their orthography, their concord or their respective places, according as he is directed by the rules which he has previously learned or has before his eye,-a purely mechanical process not much above a culinary operation done from a cookery-book.

The act of comparing the expression with the thought which it is intended to convey, of discriminating between different words and different forms, of weighing them, as it were, and judging of the clearness, propriety, and elegance of each, demands great familiarity with a language and an intimate association of the words with the ideas; it cannot, we repeat it, take place in writing exercises or original compositions in a foreign language, when the learner comes at its words only by translation, and is as yet unacquainted with their various acceptations and their idiomatic construction. These premature attempts at writing not permitting him to exercise his imitative or imaginative powers, and fraught with errors, as they must be, are calculated to vitiate rather than improve his taste. It is utterly impossible that they could, as erroneously believed, cultivate his understanding, or impart to him the power of discovering and appreciating the beauties of foreign literary productions.

Considered then, either as an initiatory task, as an intellectual

*Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres.

exercise, or as a means of better estimating the merit of foreign authors, the practice of writing a foreign language at an early stage of the study is completely useless. But it becomes still more injudicious, when viewed in reference to the learner's improvement in the national tongue. The differences of genius and construction which exist between most languages, and especially between the ancient and the modern idioms, naturally render the frequent practice of writing one an obstacle to writing another correctly. So powerful is the influence of habit, that the more easily and the more frequently we use a foreign language to express our thoughts, the more readily will its peculiar forms intrude themselves on our native composition.

Writing in a foreign language as an introductory exercise not only produces none of the benefits which are usually expected from it, but it is, as an acquisition, very limited in its use. In Latin we have already observed that it cannot be of any service, except perhaps to the Catholic clergy. In the living languages it is not likely to be applied to any thing but epistolary composition, and out of five hundred persons who learn them, not two have occasion through life to keep up a foreign correspondence. In the mother tongue, on the contrary, that acquirement must prove extremely useful in many circumstances, and as its acquisition demands considerable time and application, it is most desirable that young persons should turn their attention to it early, and should prepare for it by an assiduous study of their national works.

If any one feel inclined to write for the public, he will seldom choose, as the vehicle of his ideas, the language of a people among whom he does not live; and if he reside in the country where that language is spoken, instead of being foreign, which it was at first to him, it will, in the course of time, become in reality his own; he may then use it as such, as is the case with the writer of this work, who addresses a British public in a language of which he knew not one word at the age of twoand-twenty.

SECT. V.-ON THE WRITING OF GREEK AND LATIN VERSES.

However prejudicial to classical learning may be the writing of Latin or Greek exercises, that of Latin or Greek verses is incomparably greater. All that has been said against the former applies with double force to the latter, whether considered with

a view to mental discipline, literary discrimination, or international intercourse. As a means of learning ancient prosody, it yields in efficiency and interest to the analysis of the standard poets. As a preparation for reading the Greek and Latin poets, or appreciating their beauties, it is supererogatory; for there is no necessity to write verses in a language in order fully to understand and enjoy its poetry. Many persons read with delight and critical taste their national poets,who have never put two rhymes together. The assertion that Latin versemaking is useful, in "enabling learners to comprehend and feel all the nicer shades of expression, the delicate turn of thought, the curious felicity and harmony of Latin composition," is a gratuitous assumption beyond the power of its assertors to prove. As to its being conducive to the acquisition of a similar accomplishment in the native tongue, as affirmed by some, we will only remark, that, were this object desirable, it is not likely to be attained by this practice: for the mechanism of verse is so different in any two languages, ancient or modern, that a knowledge of the principles of versification in the one could never promote poetical skill in another.

The writing of Greek or Latin verses is more mechanical, uninteresting, tedious, unprofitable, and injurious, than the writing of Greek or Latin prose; it must not, therefore, like prose composition, be simply postponed, it must be rejected altogether from classical instruction, which it contributes to lengthen without any advantage whatever. The practice has been so universally censured that, in support of this opinion, we need only offer a few out of the many observations made on this subject by eminent writers.

"If any one will think poetry a desirable quality in his son, and that the study of it would raise his fancy and parts, he must needs yet confess that, to that end, reading the excellent Greek and Roman poets is of more use than making bad verses of his own, in a language that is not his own. And he whose design it is to excel in English poetry, would not, I guess, think the way to it were to make his first essays in Latin verses.'

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"It is not part of our plan to teach versification; for we are of opinion, that the mechanical process of making verses is unfavourable to a proper understanding of prosody, and also to the learning of the language, besides being a great waste of time."+

* J. Locke, Thoughts on Education.

† Geo. Long, Introductory Lecture, University of London 1830.

66

Writing Latin verses is useless in any view; and, in its indiscriminate exercise, it is a great absurdity. That all pupils should be whipped till they produce Latin and Greek verses, is perhaps the most preposterous waste of time and mind, not to say, the grossest injustice that can be conceived.” *

"I do not believe that a single real advantage is obtainable from Greek and Latin versification, that cannot be obtained at a far less sacrifice of time and labour without it. ... For the very reasons that would make it appear ridiculous to a French and German teacher to require his pupils to compose in French or German verse, and to spend a great deal of their time in endeavouring to acquire a great facility and expertness in so doing, do I protest against the practice of Greek and Latin verse composition. The peculiarities and licenses of the poetry of a language are easily learned in perusing the poets, by those who are acquainted with the style and construction of the prose. With respect to the appreciation of beauties, I do believe that by far the best way of arriving at that end, is by following some such method as I at present adopt. Any passage distinguished for excellence of thought or expression, is committed to memory by the students, its beauties are accurately discussed by the lecturer, and its defects also. Those who have a taste for poetry, are told to turn it into English verse, and they are desired to transfuse as many of the beauties and as much of the spirit of the original as they can into their translation; and, in so far as they fall short of so doing, the deficiency is pointed out by the lecturer. This appears to me to be the most obvious and rational, as well as the shortest, way of enabling them thoroughly to imbibe the spirit and imitate the excellences of the classic poets; and it tends directly to give them what the writing of Greek and Latin verse does not—a greater command over their own language. They become also, in this way, fully acquainted with the resources and powers of the original languages, without taking what I consider an extremely round-about way of arriving at the same end."

"I have been confirmed in my views of the effects of the system of verse-making, by having been informed that in Germany such a practice does not exist, and that the German scholars who take the lead of us in every branch of classical knowledge actually treat with ridicule, and can scarcely believe in the fact, that so much time is devoted to this pursuit at our

* James Simpson, Evidence before Committee, House of Commons, 1835.

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